Visitors to this website often comment that they are in the midst of restoring a Corvair and use this site to research which equipment is or isn't correct for a particular model year. Because both the early and late model Corvairs used the same basic body through their respective five year production runs, many parts can be interchanged. Owners who prefer to maintain a pure stock appearance generally don't mix and match, and those who are more interested in personalizing their cars, do.

On this page, we see two nice looking 1965 Monza convertibles. In the first example, the front of the car is pure stock, with the correct 1965 grill bar and Corvair emblem on the deck lid (on 1966 and later cars the grill bar was shaped differently and the Corvair script was positioned on the front panel beside the driver's side headlight). The sides of the car have been stripped of stock wheel arch and rocker panel trim.

On our second example, the wheel arch and rocker trim are correct, and so are the simulated wire wheel covers. The optional bumper guards are correctly positioned, as are the engine identification emblem and Corvair script emblem, but the fresh air grill and inserts below the bumper are from a 1965 Corsa. While the Monza and Corsa grills were similar, the Monza unit was a 1-piece design, and was body colored with silver painted vents, whereas the Corsa was equipped with a 3-piece assembly with two separate aluminum inserts attached with screws as in the picture, below. The dual-tip exhaust pipes (barely visible in the shadows) are also a departure from stock. However, they are tastefully executed, with the taper of the pipes nicely matching the angle of the grillwork.